NEWS FROM DELHI

[Guest guest]

TODAY’S NEWS FROM DELHI

December 4th, 2006

Braja Sevaki Dasi

___________________________

 

This morning we met with Mr Shubhindra Kulkarni, the former advisor to the

Prime Minister. Mr. Kulkarni is a very influential contact, and also a

supporter of Govinda Maharaja’s work in Kazakhstan. He has visited Kaz and

met with Maharaja before, and also helped with the Russian issue.

 

Mr. Kulkarni said he had good memories of Kazakhstan, and was distressed to

hear of the situation that had developed since his visit. Rati Manjari gave

Mr. Kulkarni a very thorough history of the intolerance of the Kaz

government towards the Society for Krishna Consciousness, and outlined the

legal and land issues that the government was using to persecute devotees.

Rati Manjari is a very good speaker and a convincing talker; she captures

the attention of everyone she speaks to and is undoubtedly a very powerful

part of this campaign. The fact that her house was bulldozed first adds so

much weight to her presentation, but her factual delivery and grasp of the

entire of situation is convincing.

 

Govinda Maharaja spoke at length to Mr. Kulkarni, outlining the Kaz

Government campaign to take the land away from the devotees. He said in 2005

— after the initial court cases of the year before failed and were thrown

out of even the local courts — the Government stepped up their campaign, and

in a letter to the Justice Department — mistakenly included in

correspondence to the devotees — the Government outlined their systematic

plan to drive the devotees off the land and liquidate the property. He also

told Mr. Kulkarni of the Religious Committee head’s ridiculous claims on

national television that the Hare Krishna religion was an unknown sect, that

it was unaccepted in India, that they were a threat to the nation of

Kazakhstan, and that they had come to steal from Islam. This is the same

woman who was in court last week screaming madly, “THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO

WITH RELIGION!!” All these things, Maharaja told Mr.Kulkarni, were designed

to create a hate mentality in the minds of Kazakhstanis. He told Mr.

Kulkarni that another official yelled at the Kazakhstani devotees in court,

“You people have no rights in Kazakhstan!!”, even though they are Kazakhstan

nationals.

 

Maharaja also spoke about the Governments mood towards the devotees owning

land. For example, when asked why the 9th largest country in the world (Kaz)

couldn’t spare 120 acres for this purpose, and why the Government was so

intent on taking it away, one official responded, “No! This land is sacred!

It is protected by our forefathers!” Another official told Rati Manjari, “If

you’d bought land in the middle of the city no one would have cared, but

because you have such beautiful landi.” It should be noted that the land was

a dumpsite beforehand, and in ruin. The devotees made it beautiful

themselves. Govinda Maharaja told Mr. Kulkarni that the Government’s mood

was “confiscation with no compensation.”

 

Mr. Kulkarni turned out to be the ‘dynamite’ that this campaign has been

awaiting. He encouraged us to contact all religious leaders, particularly

Muslim leaders, and as many influential politicians as possible. He said he

would speak to the Prime Minister, and encouraged us to pursue a meeting

with him. Commenting on the common response by people that “no Indians were

involved so it’s not our problem,” Mr. Kulkarni said, “We should not extend

secularism just because no Indians were involved.” He said we should ask

political leaders, “How can you stay quiet on a matter like this?” and

added, “If any other religion was involved — Christian, Muslim, whatever —

they would make it out to be a huge international concern.”

 

He suggested we form a broadbased platform and enlist the support of other

religions to all raise their voice in protest. He insisted this was not a

Hare Krishna problem, but a human rights and freedom of religion issue that

concerned everyone. As the former speech writer for the Prime Minister, Mr.

Kulkarni now writes for many newspapers and magazines in India. He said, “I

want to write about this myself.” He said in particular we should contact

Muslim religious bodies and ask that they condemn this secularism through

bodies such as the OIC (Organization of Islam Conference).

 

He also asked for the notes on the recent Religious Conference that was so

highly publicized in Kazakhstan, and said we need to push to the public and

government bodies how the Kaz Government has completely and totally reneged

on anything they had promoted up to and including the time of the

conference, which attracted international religious and media attention, and

was a great part of the promotional campaign Nazarbayev used to push his bid

for the Chair of OSCE.

 

All in all, it was a very successful meeting — Indradyumna Swami rated it

ten out of ten. It has given the team a lot of direction and huge amount to

work on, but an equal amount of encouragement.

 

After leaving Mr. Kulkarni, we went to Parliament House, where Maharaja met

briefly with Seetharama Yachury, MP with the Communist Party, which was an

important contact to make. On the way out we met with Nikhil Kumar, MP for

Congress, who is a very powerful person. He promised that he would have this

heard in Parliament tomorrow and ask the Government to give attention to

this issue. Mahamantra prabhu said afterwards that what he says carries a

lot of weight and it was very good that Mr. Kumar had taken this up. We also

spent some hours in the office of the Deputy Director of Security in

Parliament House, Mr. K.S. Mani, who also happens to be initiated by HH

Jayapataka Swami. His initiated name is Kesava Kumar Dasa. He was very

helpful, incredibly entertaining (look out for some of his stories in

Indradyumna Swami’s “Diary of a Travelling Preacher”!), and invited both

Maharaja’s to his home to enjoy South Indian prasada (he is from Chennai).